The disposal of infectious waste from hospitals and other medical establishments is a major problem. Indeed, the importance of proper and effective infectious waste disposal has become of greater concern in recent years, due to an increased awareness of health problems such as the AIDS epidemic. In part because of the AIDS epidemic, definitions of what constitutes "infectious waste" are being broadened. Consequently, the volume of infectious waste which must be disposed of is increasing. Accordingly, the need for a system or apparatus which will accomplish the safe, efficacious, and cost effective disposal of significant volumes of infectious waste is growing.
One method for sterilizing and disposing of infectious waste involves incineration, wherein the waste is burned and the decontaminated ashes are properly disposed of. An alternative waste disposal method is to sterilize the waste in a steam autoclave or ethylene oxide autoclave prior to waste disposal. While effective for their intended purposes, both incinerators and autoclaves present ancillary waste disposal problems. Incinerators, for example, are difficult and costly to construct and are relatively expensive to maintain in an environmentally safe manner. Autoclaves too, present additional problems, such as the need to monitor the processed waste for 100% microbial kill. Additionally, waste which has been sterilized by autoclaving typically requires further disposal procedures, such as incineration, prior to final disposition of the waste in such places as ordinary landfills.
With the above discussion in mind, alternative infectious waste disposal systems have been proposed to disinfect waste which has already been mechanically shredded into small particles. According to these proposals, after the shredding process, a mist of a disinfectant solution containing a chlorine compound is sprayed onto the shredded waste in order to sterilize the waste. The decontaminated liquid constituents of the resulting slurry effluent may then be separated from the solid constituents of the effluent and disposed of in an ordinary waste disposal system. Then, the decontaminated solid constituents of the effluent may be disposed of in ordinary landfills.
Unfortunately, decontamination of waste using liquified chlorine presents certain technical complications. First, liquified disinfectant loses its disinfectant potency during prolonged storage. Thus, there is a need to use liquified disinfectant that is relatively "fresh" in order to achieve an acceptable degree of waste decontamination. Second, it is relatively difficult to ensure that an appropriate amount of the disinfectant has been sprayed onto the waste during the disposal process. This is because an appropriate amount of disinfectant must contact the waste in order for the decontamination process to be efficacious. It is also important, however, to avoid spraying too much chlorine into the disposal chamber of the sterilization apparatus, in order to avoid certain undesirable results, such as the release of toxic gasses. The present invention recognizes that precise amounts of a dry chlorine compound which can be stored for a relatively lengthy period without losing its potency can be mixed with water and used to sterilize infectious waste in systems that mechanically destroy the waste.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for waste disposal in which precise amounts of a dry chlorine-containing medium are mixed with water and blended with infectious waste to sterilize the waste. Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for waste disposal which results in the destruction of infectious waste while the waste is being sterilized. Finally, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for waste disposal which is relatively easy and comparatively cost-effective to implement.